Hard Rock News 2/11/2007

Eddie Trunk of the “Friday Night Rocks” radio show on New York’s Q104.3 FM announced on his program Friday night (February 9) that a BLUE MURDER comeback consisting of all original bandmembers is being planned and that he is personally involved in putting a reunion concert together. Although Trunk was sure to point out that nothing has been confirmed, the show would likely take place sometime in the fall in New York City. No further details are currently available.

BLUE MURDER was the brainchild of guitar virtuoso John Sykes. Upon Sykes’ firing from the most successful version of WHITESNAKE, the former TYGERS OF PAN TANG and THIN LIZZY axeman set out to create a similar sounding bluesy hard rock band. They released three studio albums and one live album before breaking up in 1994. The late Ray Gillen, most famous for singing for BLACK SABBATH and BADLANDS, sang for an early version of BLUE MURDER, and the band reportedly recorded demos with him, but he didn’t appear on any of the group’s albums.

MÖTLEY CRÜE frontman Vince Neil is working on the pilot for a new A&E reality-TV show. According to Vince, the program will follow the singer and his family after his parents have moved in with him. Neil told Eddie Trunk of the “Friday Night Rocks” radio show on New York’s Q104.3 FM last night (February 9), “My wife [Lia] hasn’t talked to my mom since the wedding,” which took place January 9, 2005 in Las Vegas.

In other news, Neil has confirmed rumors that MÖTLEY CRÜE will head back to Europe in June for some festival appearances, which will likely include a stop at the Download festival in England. According to Neil, the band has written more than a hundred songs for a proposed new studio album, which is expected to be released sometime in 2008.

Neil has scheduled a number of solo headlining dates in Australia and the U.S. during March/April. He will be performing the red-hot hits of MÖTLEY CRÜE (including “Kickstart My Heart”, “Girls Girls Girls”, “Dr. Feelgood” and “Home Sweet Home”) with his all-star band featuring Dana Strum (SLAUGHTER, VINNIE VINCENT INVASION) on bass, Jeff Blando (SLAUGHTER) on guitar and Will Hunt (TOMMY LEE, DARK NEW DAY, SKRAPE) on drums.

The hard-hitting Will Hunt is no stranger to MÖTLEY CRÜE, having substituted a tendonitis-suffering Tommy Lee last year for some shows on the CRÜE’s “Carnival of Sins” tour. He previously toured the world playing drums in Tommy Lee’s solo band.

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A new Black Sabbath Album in the future?

Philip Wickstrand of MetalEater.com recently conducted an interview with BLACK SABBATH/HEAVEN AND HELL guitarist Tony Iommi. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

MetalEater.com: Now I know the question has already been answered in various outlets, but there’s still a lot of people that aren’t sure why the reunion is being called HEAVEN AND HELL, as opposed to BLACK SABBATH.

Iommi: “Well, originally, it started up, we were going to call the tour ‘Heaven And Hell’ and it went from there to ‘Yeah, let’s call the band HEAVEN AND HELL and separate the two things so people know what they’re getting. It’s not the Ozzy version of… if we go out as BLACK SABBATH, it could confuse things because we’ve just done a tour as BLACK SABBATH with Ozzy, and so we thought it’d be nice to have a fresh start, go out as something different, because all the set’s going to be Dio-era music, so it just sounds right to call it HEAVEN AND HELL. I mean, we could call it SABBATH, I own the name, but we thought it was best to do this and call it… then you don’t get everybody going ‘oh, bloody hell, I thought it was BLACK SABBATH.’ And it keeps it clean, I think and we like the idea of going out as something different and we don’t need to have to play the old BLACK SABBATH stuff if we don’t want to.”

MetalEater.com: Why was Bill Ward unable to participate in the reunion?

Iommi: “Well, it started off with Bill. Bill came over to England here and I worked with him for a week, but we didn’t feel as if it was going quite right from both sides, from Bill’s side and our side and we thought, a majority of the set we’ll be playing is what Vinny’s played anyway. So we thought it would probably be best if Bill thought it would be best for Vinny to do it, to be honest. Which is no bad feelings, there’s no bad vibes or nothing, it’s no breakup or anything like that; it’s just a choice and Bill thought it would be best to have Vinny do it as anybody.”

MetalEater.com: Can we expect the possibility of a new studio album?

Iommi: “With?”

MetalEater.com: With Dio.

Iommi: “With Dio… well, nothing’s out of the question. I think… we actually talked about it when everybody was at my house here, when we were recording these three tracks. We said ‘bloody hell, we could record an album at the moment’ and we had to sort of stop ourselves at three songs. And at first, the record company didn’t want to put three songs, and anyways, we sort of said ‘we’ve got to have three songs’, but we were already together, we could have done it and who knows? I mean, it would be nice to do an album I think. I think whatever comes now to just take it and do it, you know; I’ve got no boundaries at all.”

MetalEater.com: What about the possibility of a live CD and/or DVD from the tour?

Iommi: “Yes, we’re talking about that, we’re talking about doing that on this tour. And that would be nice to do that, I think it would be good to have that… I think the fans would like that.”

MetalEater.com: What are your expectations for the tour?

Iommi: “I don’t even have any expectations; I just want to get out and play and do… and play good and have a good set. I mean, I know with the people involved in this lineup, it will be a good set, and that’s what I want; I want to be able to go out and enjoy it, really. I don’t look for… I’m not looking for problems or anything like that — I just want to go out and play and enjoy it and hope the fans enjoy it and I think it will be very interesting.”

MetalEater.com: As far as North America, are you surprised at all that you’re playing full-fledged coliseums with this particular lineup rather than, say for instance, more mid-sized, five-thousand capacity venues?

Iommi: “No, I’m not surprised. The whole thing… we wanted to go out in a big way, it’s no point and going out and playing the little club up the road and stuff like that; I think you’ve got to go out and be able to be what’s best for you, you know, to be able… to play on these gigs and I’m looking forward to that.”

MetalEater.com: As far as the U.S. leg of the tour, is that going to be a full U.S. tour or is it just going to be more like select cities?

Iommi: “I’ve not got any definite things on that yet. We’ve been treading very lightly, really, to go out there and things are being changed at the moment now, as we speak. In fact, I spoke last night to my management and dates are being swapped ’round now for the States, because we’re supposed to be going to Brazil after the Canadian tour. After New York, we were going to go to Brazil, but I think we’re swapping ’round now, so I can’t give you any information on that, I’m afraid and the only thing that’s set in stone after is the European tour. Then we’re negotiating when to do Australia and Japan, I’m not sure if that’s before or after now.”